Opera-like Save as PDF for Firefox (Desktop)

[trashfromoceans]

The Save as PDF on Firefox defaults to the Operating system based save as PDF dialogue. However, in Opera there is a "Save as PDF..." when right clicking anywhere on a page that gives a WYSIWYG PDF copy of the web page. This has worked for me for a long time, however due to privacy concerns I am moving to Firefox from Opera. This feature is the only reason why I still have Opera on my machine, the Save as PDF produces an EXACT copy of the website, while retaining images and searchable text. Would be amazing to have something like this in Firefox.

Note: there are open source packages (such as https://wkhtmltopdf.org/) however all that I have found is outdated and non-session related (i.e. if I have to login to a website then save a PDF, open source solutions cannot do that at the moment, however Opera produces an exact PDF copy of the webpage).

[Jon]

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[marco]

@trashfromoceanswe are actually not using the OS-based save as PDF dialog, it is part of Firefox itself.

Are you asking we have a better UI for it, with a context menu, or are you asking that we improve the feature because it doesn't work well on some pages?

[trashfromoceans]

Ah I see, my bad for misrepresenting the save as PDF dialog.

But my idea request is only for the output PDF generated. I want there to be some in-built (not 3rd party add-on) way of taking a WYSIWYG page printout, complete with selectable text and links and images.

Here's an example: if I print this very page we are on right now (link for reference: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/opera-like-save-as-pdf-for-firefox-desktop/idi-p/36547) to PDF on Firefox, it is printing out differently from how I see it on my screen. However, if I use Opera to print it, it prints out EXACTLY how I see it on my screen.

Hope that helps explain my feature request. If needed, I can provide two PDFs comparing the output as well. Thanks for responding!

[dholbert]

Opera's Right-click | Save-to-PDF seems to essentially be: "take a screenshot of the whole scrollport, and save that as an extremely-tall single-page PDF".  (I'm using "screenshot" a bit loosely, since it does include selectable text / links / etc.)

Firefox has something akin to this with our own screenshotting functionality -- right-click, "take screenshot", and then use the "Save full page" button.  But of course this is missing the selectable text and clickable links.

I think https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1843407 is filed on getting that screenshot into a PDF.  Probably that bug covers the request here (or if it doesn't, then the request here is a natural evolution of what's discussed in that bug).

[trashfromoceans]

Hello, I appreciate the reply, here are some points which might provide more information regarding the linked bugzilla thread:

1) In the linked thread, they want to import the screenshot into the PDF. My request is about the generation of a PDF from the beginning. Perhaps this requires generating an image initially, however I do not believe this is the case; Opera does not seem to screenshot, since the text font quality + background image quality does not degrade on zooming into the PDF. (I would assume that if it was an image converted/imported to a PDF, zooming into the PDF would show pixelization.)

2) You mention the feature "akin" that is already present in firefox. Thank you, I have started using that more nowadays. However, since it is a PNG image, pixels are visible when zoomed in (unlike Opera). I'm thinking, maybe Opera uses SVG to save the initial image then adds text on top? not sure about this.

I would definitely be open to mentioning this post on there, if it could be considered related and thus expedite the feature implementation.

[dholbert]

(1) Good point; I added a note to that bug report, regarding screenshot vs. "actual text" (since users like yourself might expect the latter if given an opportunity to capture a screenshot as a PDF).

(2) Right, our save-full-page is definitely rasterized (pixelated) text in a PNG right now, which makes it only loosely akin to the full save-as-pdf feature, where PDF offers actual real text that can be selected and won't pixelate when scaled.

[nttkde]

Agree that being able to print a website as-it-is to a seamless PDF would be a nice feature.
Quite often I want to archive a website as-is, either to make sure I still have it as reference if/when it disappears from the internet, or to save some documentation that I may need years later in a folder on disk with other related stuff.
For that, I have Opera installed in addition to Firefox.
Full page PDF is superior to screenshot as it allows selecting and copying text, searching text, easily highlighting text, preserving hyperlinks and at least in Opera may embed images at higher resolution so that zooming in is possible.
Overall, PDF is much more suitable for reading it later, than dragging a png around in image viewer.
I often find it also superior to saving as html, as locally saved pages may not always open correctly depending on what scripts they want to execute, and it avoids having a folder of hundreds of the accompanying files if I don't have need for those.

The current regular Print to PDF is not good for this as it cuts the website in parts, often in middle of images etc., doesn't preserve the aspect ratio and messes up the layout, and doesn't render all items. It's not WYSIWYG.

In addition to desktop, it would be good in Firefox for Android. Currently, in the share menu there is 'Print' that normally allows to print to PDF, as well as 'Save as PDF', that does the same but could be changed to save the full website without page breaks.
I don't have any data to back this up but I think it's probably more common for Android users to 'print' a website to save it for later rather than to actually print it on paper.

There are some other ideas asking the same:
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/build-in-a-pdf-saving-option-that-ensures-the-file-is-saved-jus...
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/print-to-pdf-allow-selection-of-quot-single-page-quot-or-quot/i...
https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/firefox-take-screenshot-feature-add-pdf-format/idi-p/11918